When they were tired of gooseberries, there was the swing under the apple-tree, and such a tea before they went home! The more buttered toast the children ate the better pleased was Nurse; and she brought plateful after plateful to the table, till even Sydney's appetite was appeased, and he felt the time had come for a little conversation.
"I'm going to be a sailor when I grow up, Nurse," he observed, "and I'll take you a-sail in my ship. Gerry says he'll be a schoolmaster; he wants to cane the boys, you know. Cyril has decided to be an omnibus conductor, and Baby," he concluded, pointing his finger at the only girl in the family, with a half-loving, half-contemptuous glance, "what do you think Baby says she'll do?"
Baby was just about to take a substantial bite out of her round of toast; but at Sydney's words she stopped halfway and said promptly, "Baby's going to take care of the poor soldiers."
Gerry, at the other end of the table, put down his mug with a satisfied gasp, and then burst out laughing, whilst Cyril raised his head and said solemnly, "The soldiers might shoot you, Baby."
Baby went on unconcernedly with her tea; and Sydney said loftily, "It's all nonsense, of course! She'll know better by and by. Children can't take care of soldiers, can they, Nurse?"
"Bless her heart!" said Nurse, as she softly stroked the fair little head, and placed a fresh plate of toast on the table.
"But can they, now?" persisted Sydney.
Nurse paused, then said slowly, "I did hear a story from an old soldier, and he certainly said it was a child who saved his life. It was in the Crimean War, and there had been a great battle, and he lay on the field, after all was over, with no one but the wounded and dead near him. He was very cold, and suffering fearfully from thirst, as people always do after gun-shot wounds, and he thought he would die there alone and uncared-for, when, in the moonlight, he saw a little drummer-boy picking his way amongst all the dead and dying, and gathering all the old gun-stocks that were lying about. When the lad had got enough, he set to work to make a fire, and then he boiled some water, and made tea, and brought some round to all the wounded men he could find. That hot tea was the saving of a good many lives, the soldier said; and the little lad was so cheery that the poor men plucked up heart, and felt that God had not forgotten them, as before they had been almost tempted to think."
"That was a brave boy," said Sydney. "But still, you know, Nurse, Baby couldn't do that."